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“This whole affair smells of a cheap made-for-TV,” observes a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his description of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those murders (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place without any devices to see if they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her recounting of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, though they were likely less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can show off large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably occupy these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.